Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Nancy Silverton loses nest egg with Madoff

Nancy Silverton at Mozza, from the L.A. Times

I know it can sometimes be hard to summon pity for rich people who lose money, but Claudia Eller's L.A. times story of Nancy Silverton, who invested the proceeds of the sale of La Brea Bakery with Bernard Madoff, is pretty upsetting. Clearly she had bad advice and should have been more careful with her nest egg, but it's still a shame that someone who worked hard to create a quality business -- the first decent bread in L.A. -- had to see this happen. As the Times succinctly puts it, "It's a good thing Nancy Silverton still has her day job" slicing cheese at Mozza's bar -- and a good thing she co-owns the Osteria and Pizzeria, which are still going strong.

9 comments:

Indeed, my heart sank a little reading that article considering she built her wealth through hard work and labor. But like LA Times noted, she still is a lot better off than most folks right now -- hope she can hang in there at the Mozzas.

A good friend lost most of his savings because of Chais and Madoff as well. The tone of that article is bothersome because while investments are always risky, Chais had been running his fund for 30 years so it seemed like sturdy fund. I can't imagine what it must have felt like to discover that he then took that money and handed it over to Madoff

You nailed it in your first sentence, Pat. It is very difficult to summon pity for people who invested their nest egg with Madoff, or any investment firm for that matter. What's the matter? One million, two million, three million in reserve is not enough for you? You need to roll the dice and see if you can double or triple your savings? Then go to Vegas or Atlantic City; at least they'll give you free drinks all the way to the poor house.

A few years ago, I came into some money and was looking for someone to help me with investors. At the time, I was spending a lot of time in West L.A. I met a lot of people who tried to recommend various "wealth advisors."

However, upon questioning them, non of these people could tell me how their monies were being invested. They didn't know the single name of a company, fund, or bond where their monies were being invested in. This seemed very odd, and all they were interested in was getting a high monthly return.

Thank God I didn't go with any of the names --Chaise being one of them.

As bad as I feel for all the people who lost money with Madoff..I also have to remember that all of these people were making 25% on their money annually. That is an unbelievable return on their money and to get that kind of return, it is considered high risk. All of these people just felt like they had the magic ticket ticket...they didn't.

As a business owner/operator I understand why Nancy put everything under one "roof". You're so consumed running and growing your business that you park things (even of great value) because it's taking everything you've got to keep a business profitable and relevant for growth.

the returns were not 25%. they were between 9-11% noone did this to be greedy. They invested with people they thought could be trusted and who were doing due diligence on their behalf. What they were paid to do.All who think that this tragedy warrants being trite and sarcastic should talk to the victims. those who lost all and have nowhere to turn. Those who worked hard and had built a life , shared that life with their family and those who now at the ages of 76, 88, etc have a problem rebuilding.

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